ipl-logo

Texas Death Penalty

997 Words4 Pages

Ever since the outset of the American Constitution, capital punishment has existed as a crime sentence in the United States. However, in recent decades, this topic has become highly controversial, as many states have dictated against the death penalty. Although states with this position on capital punishment are increasing, some states, such as Texas, have continued to edict this practice in their provinces. In the State of Texas, the sentence to death upon a person should not be permitted due to the fact it can wrongly convict a person, its court trial is highly expensive, and it brings forth an unjust treatment.
One reason why capital punishment sanctions should not be allowed in Texas is due to the possibility of wrongful conviction towards …show more content…

Throughout various court cases, convicts have reported to be victims of racial bias and discrimination due to their skin color. There has even been local statistical studies that prove this to be the case. In Harris County, for instance, of the defendants put on death row who “were sentenced to death for crimes that occurred when they were teenagers...73.3% were black and only 13.3% were white” (“Race and the Death Penalty”). Such action was seen in the case of Gary Graham, a fellow 17 year-old African-American, who was convicted for the robbery of a supermarket and the killing of Bobby Lambert in the year 1981. Throughout the case, Graham’s culpability was questioned multiple times due to the lack of provable and cogent evidence of his crime. For instance, although being a witness, Bernadine Skillerns’ testimony about glimpsing the murderer’s face through “a car windshield...30-40 feet away” was not ample enough to truly blame Graham of the crime ("Executed But Possibly Innocent"). Even more, two other witnesses that allegedly worked in the supermarket described Graham as not being the killer. Moreover, rather perfunctorily, the two witnesses were never “interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney” ("Executed But Possibly Innocent"). Conceivably, decision-makers and court appointed attorney’s may fall back on conscious or oblivious preferences about who are the most noticeably awful sorts of convicts or who are the more sympathetic convicts, therefore, creating a potential bias system towards one's race. However, some may have a point that in some occasions racial bias can be hard to prove and is sometimes misleading. Nonetheless, due to the actions of court functionaries, the probability of wrongfully and purposely convicting someone to the death penalty due to skin color still

Show More
Related
918 Words | 4 Pages

Source A argues that disparities between blacks and whites have been appalling in court. According to Source A, “If a black person kills a white person, they are twice as likely to receive the death sentence as white person who kills a black person” (2). This reveals that a black person has a higher rate of receiving the death sentence when tried for murdering a white person. If a white person is tried for a killing of a black person they have a 50% chance of getting the death sentence, then that means that a black person would receive a 100% chance of getting the death sentence for killing a white person.

Read More
612 Words | 3 Pages

By definition racism is: “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” (Merriam and Webster) This problem is often times very relevant in our jury system, though if we send someone to prison, they have the right to a retrial and we can at least give them the rest of their lives back (and a lot of money in restitution). While as if we send someone to death, we can never give them their lives back. Recent studies show that in interracial murders, when there is a white defendant and a black victim, there were only 31 executions, whereas if there was a black defendant and a white victim, there was 291 executions carried out.

Read More
815 Words | 4 Pages

As a result, capital juries tend to be whiter and more dominated by males than are juries in other cases. It has been suggested that as a result of this, capital juries are about 43% more likely to sentence a killer to die if his victim is white. Undeniably, capital juries show some racial disparities in their sentencing decisions. If juries in capital cases were not subject to death-qualification procedures, there is little reason to believe these racial disparities would survive. The solution, some might suggest, to minimize racial discrepancies in capital sentencing is to eliminate the ability of prosecutors to disqualify anyone with qualms about capital punishment from the jury pool.

Read More
1068 Words | 5 Pages

Capital punishment, or better known as the death penalty, had made its first appearance with the Babylonians through “the Code of Hammurabi”, the first written set of laws and punishments in history. It has since spread worldwide and evolved to fit the customs and traditions of numerous civilizations as time progressed, which explains why some states in America today have implemented some form of Capital Punishment. Used only for the most vile offenses, Capital Punishment may seem appropriate for those who have done the unthinkable. However, it is unclear where we draw the line between whether or not one should be submitted to the death penalty based on the magnitude of the offense. The Supreme Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia had helped

Read More
1145 Words | 5 Pages

Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three

Read More
1721 Words | 7 Pages

Texas Death Penalty Controversy Introduction Texas has a long history of using the death penalty as a form of punishment for serious criminal offenses. The state has carried out the most executions of any state in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, with a total of 570 executions as of September 2021. This paper will examine the history of the death penalty in Texas, the process of imposing and carrying out a death sentence, and the controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty in the state's criminal justice system. History of the Death Penalty in Texas Texas has a long history of using the death penalty as a form of punishment. The state carried out its first execution in 1819 when George Brown

Read More
125 Words | 1 Pages

Although Texas is the state with the greatest number of death row sentences and executions, it has one of the highest crime rates in the entire nation. Therefore, the death penalty is ineffective because it does not diminish the incidence of crimes, take the life of innocent people, is racially unequal, costly, and alternative measure can be implemented

Read More
1427 Words | 6 Pages

And these statistics become even more egregious as black people who are convicted of murder are about 80% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers. About 13% of murders by Black people have white victims, but twice as many are convicted of killing white people nearly 26% of innocent Black murder exonerees— are convicted of killing white people. These statistics also undoubtedly show the Justice system's clear bias for convicting, framing, and arresting black men and women for nothing else but their skin color, even sentencing thousands of innocents to prison in the

Read More
932 Words | 4 Pages

The death penalty is a controversial issue that has been debated in the United States for a long period of time. In our own state of Texas, executing convicted criminals has become second nature. This is due to the fact that Texas has executed more people than any other state in the United States since 1976. So why does Texas lead the United States in executions? There are many reasons and factors that has led to this point.

Read More
1362 Words | 6 Pages

Murder cases in which Whites killed blacks are quickly thrown out of courts on the basis that either the White man is acting in self defense or the Black is provocative and deserve the treatment he got from the White man. African-Americans get more death sentence than whites mainly because of the race they belong too. African Americans have difficulty getting a job because of the color of their skin. Job discrimination starts from when they submit their application letters. Records showed that if a White man and a Black applied for the same position, there is a

Read More
1409 Words | 6 Pages

Regarding an article titled "Race and the Death Penalty," written by the American Civil Liberties Union, "The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43% of total executions since 1976 and 55% of those currently awaiting execution. " For example, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, murders committed by African Americans are treated as more severe and "deserving" of the death penalty because of the prone, aggravating factors established by the simple initiation of "harm, fear, of pain" through the color of one's black skin ("Death Penalty in Black"). Furthermore, another measure of race's impact on the death penalty is the combined effect of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of the severity of the murder committed ("Death Penalty in Black").

Read More
815 Words | 4 Pages

“The law may be color-blind as it is written, but not as it is enforced.” Racial bias in the death penalty can be traced back to Furman v. Georgia, where handing down the death penalty sentence, unfairly, constituted as a cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The reinstatement of the death penalty with its new sentencing guidelines, implemented by the Supreme Court, was to ensure that the death penalty sentence was used in a constitutional way. Despite these guidelines, somehow, racial bias has found a way to thrive. It has been documented that an individual is more likely to receive the death penalty in a case where the victim is White than in cases where the victim is Black.

Read More
558 Words | 3 Pages

The Death Penalty in Texas has been around for as long as I can remember. I've known from a really young age that the death penalty was a very extreme form of executing inmates in prison for a very horrible crime they committed. Many people may argue against getting rid of the death penalty because the death penalty gives family closure, but that isn't always the case. Most cases people want the person who committed the crime to their family member to rot in jail for the rest of their life. My main points I really want to hit on is that The Death Penalty does not deter crime, the south accounts for 80% of the executions, yet it has the highest regional murder rate, executions actually cost way more than having someone in prison for

Read More
1147 Words | 5 Pages

While it is true innocent people have been exonerated while on death row and some may have even been executed, new technology provides greater evidence to proof either one’s guilty or innocent ( “Wrongful Convictions Overturned in Death Penalty Cases Due to Advances in DNA Testing”). The advancement in DNA testing allows future cases and past cases to obtain justice, ensuring that the innocent will not have to worry of wrongful convictions and victims families can gain closure. There are other factors that can tie into wrongful convictions these are the jurys, courts, and police. Bias based on race or religion does occur, prosecutors have been found to sometimes target individuals using the death penalty as a trophy to show off (“Wrongfully Convicted Louisiana Man Asks Justice Department to Investigate New Orleans Prosecutors”). In 2010 exonerations for black males were 71, higher than white males which were 53 (“Capital Punishment: Cruel and Unusual?”).

Read More
1720 Words | 7 Pages

A third disadvantage to the death penalty is the highly possible risk of wrongful execution/punishment. Sometimes people may be charged with or receive a punishment because of something they are innocent for. This can happen because of several factors. “Between 2007 and 2017 the leading contributing causes of wrongful conviction in the death row exonerations were official misconduct (82.4%), perjury or false accusations (76.5%), false or misleading forensic evidence (32.4%), inadequate legal defense (23.5%), false or fabricated confession (17.6%), and mistaken eyewitness identification (11.8%)” (“Causes of Wrongful…”). A disadvantage to life in prison is that more prisons need to be built.

Read More

More about Texas Death Penalty

Related Topics

Open Document